Aug 08

Network provides PR support for Web 2.0 female workforce event

Network Communications’ PR strategic approach helped focus attention on the fact that females in today’s Web 2.0 workforce are looking for special leadership from CIO’s when it helped Australia’s FITT (Females in IT and Telecommunications’) industry organisation with their annual IT Trends Forum.

Network is FITT’s pro bono PR agency, responsible for helping FITT to raise its profile with existing and potential members. This is achieved through creating more engaging events, identifying sponsorship partners and gaining media coverage for the organisation.

When it came to the 2008 IT Trends Forum the agency’s role included applying its insights to create a topic that would be topical, engaging and newsworthy. As part of our PR support role we were also involved in drafting the invitation to members, discussing the key topic points with the presenters, selecting and briefing the Master of Ceremonies, engaging the event’s video partner (Viocorp) and gaining post event media coverage.

Over 200 professionals attended the forum, “CIO 2.0 - Power to the People” held in Sydney on August 13. Master of Ceremonies, Brad Howarth, introduced the topic and the two keynote presenters, Mary Ann Maxwell from Gartner and Cyndi Mitchell from Thoughtworks Studios.

The main take-outs from the event were:

• smart CIOs need to identify and empower Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants,
• there needs to be a balance struck between collaboration and control when it comes to the use of Web2.0 tools within the enterprise,
• companies need to look beyond the ‘perpetual beta’ style of software development and embrace agile and lean development strategies to deliver applications that are intuitively understood and used by this new tech-savvy workforce.

In commenting on the event Carolyn Shaw, FITT Chairperson said, “This was a very engaging and interactive forum that brought a full house to the venue, held their attention for over two hours, and provoked interesting discussions.  There is no doubt that the topic we created around the emerging role of a CIO2.0 is a trend that needs to be studied and addressed.”

PR articles:

Computerworld

ARN - same as Computerworld

Voice & Data